The Moroccan engineer beating stereotypes to stand up for sustainability

“For me, sustainability is a way of living, a way of thinking. It’s being conscious and absolutely in harmony with the communities around you, with the planet,” says Hanane.

As the Executive Director of Sustainability and Green Development at OCP Group, Hanane is driving up sustainability at a state-run company that feeds global agriculture.

“I was a chemical engineer in charge of the production of fertilisers and power plants, and this helped me to see the reality on the ground and be more conscious about the impacts on our environments,” explains Hanane.

“I started also being aware of the climate change impacts. Now we are starting to see a reality and real effects on the ground.”

OCP makes fertiliser out of phosphate, mined in Morocco. The production process is water and energy intensive. Ammonia is also part of the process. Begging the question: how can it ever be sustainable in the true sense of the word?

“We consider our mission a planetary mission and a humanitarian mission, working for food security etcetera. We’ve invested a lot to make sustainability a core component of our strategy. We also work on providing sustainable road maps for water consumption, for energy, for resource consumption,” says Hanane.

“Unfortunately, the amount of organic raw materials that exist in the world is not sufficient to feed all the needs of the planet in terms of fertilisation. It’s a very small amount.”

OCP has invested heavily in tech and innovation like water desalination, and wind and solar power, as it looks to reach carbon neutrality by 2040. But 18 years is a long way off in a world that’s constantly changing.

“Lots of our challenges are linked to the need for technology, technology development, to R&D and, to be realistic, it